Tag Archives for " focus "

Mar 30

Goals Suck

By Lauren | Brain food , Insight

Having goals is not going to help your business. In fact, having goals could cripple your chances of success.

The human brain is complex in it’s make-up and performance. Millions of synapses making thousands of instantaneous connections. But it still wants things to be simple.

With too much going on in your brain by feeding it too many images of potential success, it’s going to get confused, disoriented and discombobulated.

if you know anything about peak performance, that’s not a great headspace to be in.

Just ask any golf coach and they will tell you that having too much going on in your brain is the #1 major problem, in fact they call the few inches between your ears the most challenging distance in golf.

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Feb 07

It’s All In A (Brand) Name

By Lauren | Insight , Personal Branding

Choose your brand well...or others will choose it for you.

On a recent trip to New Zealand we visited the capital, Wellington, driving into the city along the waterfront and passing the sports stadium I had worked at years ago when I was brand manager for AXA and ran the World Rugby Sevens tournament there.

This towering, circular stadium, made of corrugated steel, is a few years old now, but when it was built there was fiery public debate about where it would be located. As it turned out, the council made the right decision and built it smack bang in the transport hub of the city, a few steps from the train station and on major bus routes, within walking distance from bars and restaurants.

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Dec 31

The 7 Real Skills You Need To Make 2016 Your Best Year Ever

By Lauren | Insight , Personal Branding

Enough of the New Year, New You hyperbole, mythical predictions and unrealistic resolutions, here are the 7 real skills you’re going to need to build a strong and successful personal brand this year:

Skill 1: The ability to be happy to be yourself?

It’s all too easy to look around and wish you were someone else and all together too hard to try to be someone different to who you really are. It’s much more fulfilling to be comfortable in your own skin, knowing you are being 100% authentic and honest.
Wishing you were more like someone else is not going to help you get the most from the year.

Action star Bruce Lee said “Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it.”

Be grateful for all of you, forget what others think of you or what your competitors are like and discover what’s great about you.

It doesn’t work to constantly be seeking happiness, thinking that once you have a brand, then I’ll be happy to be myself. You will become 100% confident in yourself when you celebrate everything you are, your natural skills and talents and create the essence of your personal brand.

Only then can you step into your brand and start to live it.

We are living in the era of the authentic brand, so just be you?

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Dec 23

What Are Your Gifts?

By Lauren | Insight , Personal Branding

Christmas is here and it’s the time for giving and receiving of gifts…but what is your gift to give to the World?

Have you figured out yet, what your one true gift is that makes you so special?
At an evening with Oprah recently, she talked about the ‘thread’ that connects our life, starting very young when we did something effortlessly, something we loved doing, something that simply came naturally.
In her case it was speaking, starting at church as a child and of course becoming one of the most famous TV show hosts and great orators.

What is yours?

Think back…was it singing, dance, did you organise things, draw, read, play acting for your friends and family, play a sport really well, help others, tell stories, teach others, make people laugh…

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Dec 03

Top 27 Personal Branding Lessons from Oprah Winfrey

By Lauren | Insight , Personal Branding

When the World's leading female personal brand speaks, she shares the most valuable lessons she has learned throughout her life to inspire others.

So let's look at her personal branding examples that can encourage you to live your brand like Oprah...

Here are the top 27 Personal Branding Lessons from Oprah Winfrey:

#1: Two days after Oprah Winfrey started kindergarten, she wrote to her teacher saying: "I don't think I belong here 'cause I know a lot of big words." The teacher agreed and she skipped to first grade.

The Lesson: Never let anything hold you back.

#2: When Oprah was recruited to host her own morning show, A.M. Chicago, her major competitor in the time slot was Phil Donahue. Winfrey's open, warm-hearted personal style won her 100,000 more viewers than Donahue in just a few short months. She went from last place to first in the ratings.

The Lesson: Be yourself, engage and connect with your audience

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Sep 14

The Worlds Most Enduring Personal Brand

By Lauren | Insight , Personal Branding

What personal branding lessons can we learn from her?

At 5pm Australian time September 9, the world's most recognised personal brand celebrated the fact that they’ve been around the longest.

Of course, I’m talking about Queen Elizabeth II who has out-reigned her great, great grandmother, Queen Victoria as the longest serving monarch.

Her brand was born in a time of turmoil, between two world wars, inheriting a crown at tender age of just 25. Hard to believe today that a 25 year old would be capable of taking on such a role, and encouraging to know that you can start to develop your personal brand and deal with whatever life throws at you from any age.

Lesson 1

You can start to develop your personal brand and deal with whatever life throws at you from any age.

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Jun 16

Do What You Do Best

By Lauren | Brain food , Insight

Do you currently do what you do best?
Ironic I know, but you might think you have nothing to teach anyone...it's probably because you have forgotten just how much you know!
If you've been doing what you do for 5 years or more, chances are you do plenty on autopilot, you get it done without even thinking about it!
It's all part of the learning process:
Whenever you learn something new you begin with Unconscious Incompetence - you don't know what you don't know, you are just excited because it's all new.

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Jun 02

The Entrepreneurial Brain

By Lauren | Brain food , Insight

The Entrepreneurial Brain is amazing, with it you have overcome the fear of failure and decided to start your own business, telling that "itty-bitty-shitty-committee' in your head to be quiet and let you just get on with it.

Trouble is, now that you have the superhuman power to be in control of the fear centre in your own brain, you are also incredibly wide open to opportunity.


Having a tsunami style flood of ideas on the go is typical of the entrepreneur, an effect otherwise known as 'bright-shiny-object-itis'.

It's a powerful thing to have all these great ideas, however it can lead to having called FOMO - the fear of missing out. when you suffer FOMO, you try to be everything to everyone, stopping you from standing out as different.

Of course standing out from the crowd will always help you attract more of your perfect prospects and the first step is to decide what you want to stand for.
Most brands have something they are known for - Nike is action, Apple is Imagination, Cadbury is a luxury treat, Volvo is safe...

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Apr 13

Lets Target Gays

By Lauren | Core Message , Marketing

What do you say when somebody asks your opinion about targeting the gay market?
Recently a personal travel consultant asked for my advice about a great idea she had.
She told me she'd like to go after the gay market because they had discretionary income for travel.
Although I thought that was a bit generic, I agreed with her idea because most gay people I know are DINKies - Double Income No Kids, meaning they potentially have more money to spend on things like travel. She might have a point.
So then I asked her how many travel tours for gay people she had managed before.

None she said.

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